


Killing Time

by nightmaremagnet



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 160: The Eye Opens, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21786082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightmaremagnet/pseuds/nightmaremagnet
Summary: “Well, as fun as listening to you monologue is I will give you some privacy. Go for a walk.”Elias wastes Martin’s time.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims - Implied
Comments: 24
Kudos: 101
Collections: Rusty Quill Secret Santa 2019





	Killing Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BaronetCoins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaronetCoins/gifts).



There’s a sudden chill in the air and the fresh scent of rain is beginning to seep in around Martin. The day is rapidly taking a turn for the worse and he rubs his arms, regretting his lack of foresight to grab a coat. It had seemed such a pleasant day when he left the cabin. Idyllic. It hardly occurred to him.

He has no intention of getting stuck, miles out, walking in a storm and so he sits patiently at the bus stop, looking back at the town. Small and picturesque. Beautiful. Daisy probably chose it for the same reason she chose her name; to mock the expectations of it.

For some reason, Martin always thought he’d hate the country life. Quiet days, neighbors few and far between. Nights where you can see every star in the sky, look up and realize the true magnitude of space and feel like a tiny miracle to experience it at all.

The only one who…

Oh.

Well.

Right. Lonely. Isolation. Fine.

But it’s actually not that. 

Millions of people like long quiet walks alone with their thoughts. It’s not an avatar thing, needing a quick break away from people. That’s just life. Self-care. A breather.

Even if he’s maybe a bit uncomfortably aware of every person on the street.

Martin averts his gaze when he’s out and about, alone without Jon. He is careful that his mumbled greetings don’t invite conversation.

Everyone has been nothing if not lovely. Introducing themselves and everything. Quaint. Close knit.

It’s…

Well, Martin knows Jon’s been enjoying it. Being around people whose smiles are genuine; who aren’t judging him. Just that Martin could do without the nosy indulgence on all their faces. Being noticed. Remembered.

He resents, just a bit, that their presence reminds him that getting rid of Peter didn’t get rid of the attraction he feels towards the Lonely. Peter's death didn’t set Martin free.

It’s with force of will that Martin doesn’t slide himself back into the empty, yawning expanse of the Forsaken. 

If Jon can fight his instinct to Know, Martin can make the effort not to slip away.

If Jon can struggle to stay with him, fight monsters and second realms, boosted by the desire to… save him? It’s more than Martin ever did for Jon and it means he has so much to make up for.

Losing Jon gutted him. It wasn’t a fast band aid loss, like with Tim. There wasn’t a coffin to say ‘goodbye’ to. There was no tombstone he could visit. No marker he could point at that signified ‘this is the proof of Jon’s death. There’s no going back. It’s time to move on.’

Jon’s strange in-between life and death meant there could never be closure. 

It meant Martin had to learn to give up hope. To compartmentalize the guilt of accepting the loss of a friend whose body was still warm, whose brain was still functioning.

God, it had felt like the worst of betrayals to abandon Jon to the intubation tubes breathing for him and the machines that forced his heart to beat. But he couldn’t wait forever. It wasn’t realistic to put his life on hold indefinitely. 

And then…

Jon waking up was a whole new grieving process. Denial and anger and bargaining. 

It didn’t help that Jon had woken up… different. With some new second chance lease on life optimism flooding him. Heart on his sleeve, soft words, and desperation.

Jon wanted to strengthen friendships that had never exactly gotten off the ground in the first place and what the hell was Martin supposed to do with that?

He thinks he should apologize. Maybe. It’s not like he doesn’t know he isn’t the Martin Jon was hoping to come back to.

But there isn’t a switch he can flick on and reset himself to who he had been before Jon had… Before the Unknowing.

In the flat plain distance Martin can see the bus arriving. Slow on the bumpy roads.

Thank god.

The horrible thoughts feel half nostalgic. The beautiful ache of insulated privacy. The _justification_ of loneliness. Muted, like a dream Martin is still waking up from, but present and filling.

And only half true.

Martin is where he wants to be. He is _with_ who he wants to be with.

He is.

And the proof is in the giddy rush he feels as the bus slows to a stop; the silly ridiculousness of needing to cut off even ten minutes of the walk back home. _Home_. A life steadily striding towards their own twisted brand of wonderful, if pseudo, normalcy.

The accordion doors open with a rickety creak and there’s a bounce in Martin’s stride as he begins to board.

A departing passenger blocks his path and it’s on the tip of his tongue to apologize for his overeager rush when Martin looks up and takes in the man’s face.

He’s drawn to his eyes first. Strange that they don’t look old with age or sharp with wisdom. Just an ordinary, commonplace brown. Nothing striking or memorable about them.

Forgettable, like everything else about Elias– _Jonah._

Normal.

Martin has never met anyone as skilled at scheduling as Elias is. Like he’s spent centuries perfecting the art of flawless timing.

“Hello, Martin.” Elias says, stepping forward with a challenging expression, daring Martin to disobey his unspoken command and live with the repercussions that will certainly follow.

Martin steps back, letting Elias drive him off the bus.

Elias smiles as though they’re old friends and not adversaries. He raises his hand to wave off the driver and Martin startles as the doors close.

He can still call it back. The bus will return for an uncertain traveler, but Elias is staring at him with eager eyes, like he has a ticket to anywhere and would be pleased to come along.

Damnit.

“Suppose it’s too much to hope you got off at the wrong stop,” Martin snaps. 

“As awkward as public transport is…”

“What the hell are you doing here? Can’t you just, y’know, stalk Jon from anywhere?” America, maybe. Australia. 

“I can even watch him from a bus stop on the edge of town.” 

There’s an energy about Elias that Martin’s never seen before. Manic, almost.

“Relax, Martin. It isn’t Jon I’ve found, after all.”

“Lucky me.”

Like an omen, a shadow passes overhead casting Elias’ features in sharp relief.

Martin looks up and sees dark clouds roll over the sky, blocking out the sun. 

He shivers.

“To be honest,” Elias complains, “I rather expected to find you in a better mood. From where I’m standing it would appear you’ve managed to create yourself a pleasant enough happily ever after. You ought to be gracious.”

Martin flinches when Elias gestures invitingly to the bus stop bench.

Elias raises his hands in surrender. “I come in peace. You’ve been so good for me, I’ve no intention of doling out punishment.”

“I’d like to see you try. Guess you haven’t heard about Peter yet, huh?”

“Hmm. You’re quite confident to make threats that Jon will have to follow through on,” Elias says, taking a seat. “What in the world makes you think he’d fight _me_.”

Martin will admit Jon has a tendency to be… a bit weird, about Elias. Quick to stand down and passively support Elias' enemies. To cheer them on, but only from the sidelines.

He gets it – wishes he didn’t, but he does. It’s a strange place to be in, next to an avatar who embraces the same instincts that scare you. Who shows by experience, by example, that you can be independent while owned. That there’s control to be made of the fears that consume you as a shared patron tweaks your mind and enhances your senses. Someone that tells you you’ll be okay when everyone else is reproachful.

Kin, you can feel in your blood.

Safety within the pack.

Martin wonders if he’d have had it in him to kill Peter.

Elias smiles a godawful smug grin.

But if push came to shove, if Martin asked… 

Yes. Martin is, in fact, confident Jon would fight.

And win.

“Great,” Martin says, “so you don’t want to fight. What do you want, then?”

“I suppose… to make myself useful. Isn’t that what you’re always going on about?”

“Useful to what?” 

“Believe it or not Martin, useful to you.”

No, Martin doesn’t believe it.

“Traveling an old dirt road is not where you want to be today.”

Martin remembers that Basira bundled herself and Jon up to Ny-Alesund all because Elias had dared her to call his bluff. When the fate of the world could be at stake, she had followed his lead for the damn one percent chance he wasn’t lying.

When they returned Martin had found her anger exasperating. Elias had played his prank, had his fun, but ultimately no harm had been done. He didn’t see the point of putting so much energy into hating Elias.

Or maybe that was just the disinterest of the Lonely, but he thinks he understands her better now.

Martin sighs and drops onto the bench beside Elias. 

“Say that again, but not like, y’know, a cryptic asshole.”

Elias’ breathe catches and he shivers. His eyes look very dark and he hums, pleased. “You’re hungry, aren’t you Martin?”

The intensity in Elias’ words speaks of meals smothered in terror and pain. Of knowledge and isolation.

Martin’s so busy keeping an eye out for Jon’s demons, he’s scarcely had time for his own. “I’m not an Avatar.”

“No? I can feel them both inside you. The Beholding and the Lonely.” Throwing out that little tidbit would be a whole lot more impressive if Martin didn’t know it was second hand gossip. “Can’t you?”

Mostly, all Martin can feel is anxiety being in Elias’ presence, knowing Jon is alone in the cabin, unawares.

“More so now than before, perhaps?”

“Are you here alone?” Martin questions instead. “In the town, I mean.”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen… Does Jon know?”

“No.”

Martin nods, unhappily.

Elias raises his eyebrow and hums an irritated sound when Martin only shrugs.

“How should I know?” Martin snaps. “If you’re asking if I can, I don’t know, step into the Lonely and Know things? Maybe.”

“Maybe.”

“Yeah. Or maybe I fell down a Wikipedia hole and just have a lot of useless knowledge. Maybe I hate you and _that’s_ why I want to be alone.” 

“As you’ve said.”

“Emphatically.”

“Yet, you didn’t answer my question.”

Martin growls in frustration as the first sprinkles of rain begin to fall from the sky. There’s an acidic, scorched sulfur scent in the air, unlike the dewy fresh Martin usually associates with rain.

He debates waiting for another bus or weathering the storm.

He looks up at the clouds, blackening like they don’t have plans of evaporating any time soon.

“Yeah, well,” Martin says, “you didn’t answer my question either so…”

“Didn’t I? Old habits die hard, I suppose.”

Martin growls, “Elias…” warning and irritated and the name hangs in the air between them.

Martin wonders what Elias -the real Elias- was like. What he looked like when he was happy. Carefree. Young. If Elias was fun to be around. A good man.

If he deserved what happened to him.

Another life destroyed at the alter of Beholding.

“Jonah,” Martin corrects. “Jonah.”

“Old habits, indeed.” Elias– Jonah– _He_ smiles and, well. Martin can’t turn back time. “You’ll have to feed them eventually, Martin. Or choose. I assume I can leave the sales pitch to Jon?”

Elias’ teasing expression is exaggerated. Theatrical.

Martin frowns, uneasy. He’s never spent much time with Elias, certainly not outside the context of work, but he’s hard pressed to accept any form of playfulness from him.

He doesn’t know how to respond to that, doesn’t want to think about it really, but as the silence stretches Elias’ smile grows and his eyes take on a distant expression. Far away and distracted. Excusable as lost in his own thoughts but Martin’s seen Jon, time and time again, when the Beholding grips him. When his focus is diverted and he loses himself in impossible knowledge.

“Knock it off.”

Elias blinks and tilts his head, posing an unspoken question.

“I know what you’re doing,” Martin scowls. “Stop it. Leave Jon alone.”

“I’m not– Hmm…” Elias laughs, “Do you know what, Martin? I don’t think I’ve any right to explain. Jon, perhaps, might.”

“Jon? Or the Archivist?”

“Are they not the same?”

“Not to you.”

“I see. Jon, then. He hasn’t faced much condemnation from you in the past, so it’s likely he’ll tell you. It must be nice to be an unscrutinized villain. Perhaps you would feel similarly about me if you stopped thinking of me by the name of a dead man?”

Judging by _Jonah’s_ mocking smile, Martin doesn’t think he needs to refute that asshole claim.

“Oh, don’t look like that, Martin. Nothing against you, of course. You simply… make your choices in the moment. You overthink the wrong problems.”

A crack of lightning breaks the sky and the soft falling rain turns into a downpour. 

A rush of adrenaline floods Martin and he sways, dizzily.

Elias’ voice pulls him out of a vertigo spin. “When the, ah, ‘big picture’ hurts, you look for small victories.”

Which is an interpretation of events that’s so overtly disingenuous as to be beneath even Elias.

Concentrating on Elias, hating him, feels steadying in the sudden onslaught of the storm. 

A rail to brace himself against.

Martin scowls. “You, _you_ of all people, are accusing me of taking the first easy out that comes my way? Jesus. I worked ten years for you and can count on one hand the times you took initiative on _anything_. Even in hindsight, my god. Every year. Like it would kill you to make an effort. The same speeches. The same performance review. The same sorry excuses for your suck salary increases, by the way. Thanks for that. We all appreciated it. Your ‘big picture’ is to sit around and count on people not being half as lazy as you are.”

To sit around waiting for someone to read a statement.

“So, fine. Yeah. I’ll take my ‘small victories’ over cowering in an office for two hundred years where no one can ever know who I am. Really am. Just – just _watching_ and throwing my life away on something that really, really doesn’t care.”

Elias blinks, surprised as though he doesn’t know he was as terrible a manager as he is a person.

“Or, whatever.” Martin shrugs. “It’s only, y’know, your life. Why bother living it.”

“Do you feel better?”

“A little bit, maybe.”

“I see. …You are, admittedly, not wrong.”

“I know,” Martin says, but his words are drowned out when the wind hits the shelter, rocking the small stand, and rain hits the roof as ice.

“But I am endeavoring to correct that.” Elias’ voice sounds far off in the distance and Martin has to strain to focus. Clench his fists until his nails dig into his skin and he can center himself through the pain. 

Great, now he’s Elias’ self help guru.

And, damnit, he’s encouraging Jon’s personal villain to become more proactive.

Fuck it; he’d rather get hit by a hailstorm, anyways.

“As pleasant as these talks with you always are…” Martin says, rising unsteadily to his feet. Heavy. Like pushing through quicksand.

A rush of vertigo assails him. 

If he couldn’t feel the Lonely inside him before, if he could overlook the Beholding pumping through his veins… 

They’re there now, coursing through him like runaway trains, impossible speeds, critical.

Elias’ eyes are dark; pupils blown wide. “Are you sure you’re not hungry, Martin?”

“Are you– are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“ _Damnit, Jonah!_ ”

Elias laughs, delighted. “No. No, Martin. I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re lying.”

“Well. I suppose I might be… _wasting your time._ ” Elias says with an awful relish that sends a chill down Martin’s spine. “You see, when I saw you here, heading back to our dear Jonathan… unease got the better of me. Not an emotion I’m accustomed to feeling and it seemed best not to take the risk, far fetched though it might be.” Elias shrugs. “Or, perhaps… I’ve grown somewhat fond of you. So few people have been able to subvert my expectations of them and I truly couldn’t have anticipated where you would end up. The Archivist’s loving embrace? Hmm. On your heads be it,” Elias says, clucking his tongue in disapproval. “Regardless. I think I’m done with self-reflection.”

The wind hits the shelter like a gunshot bang and the plastic cracks.

“Y-you won your bet,” Martin says with mounting fear that tastes like the after effect buzz of fine wine.

“I did.”

“What– what was it?”

“The bet or the winnings?”

Martin looks flatly at him, unimpressed. Perhaps Elias doesn’t keep track of their every waking moment but it’s hardly a leap to assume Jon told him of his confrontation with Peter; of what he learned.

Elias raises his eyebrow, inquiring.

“The reason.”

Elias spreads his hands in answer, showing off the world. His smile speaks of hidden things. Secret machinations still at play, coming to the fore.

The ground rumbles beneath them and Elias’ hand darts out, catching Martin before he falls over. “Stay here,” Elias says, raising his voice to be heard above the storm. “You won’t make it in time to save Jon.”

Martin shouts an expletive as thick, gossamer tendrils of pure black tear at them like a missile, curving around the shelter like curious, sentient beings before shooting off into the dusky landscape.

Elias continues, “The best you can hope to do now is damage control.”

“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Martin doesn’t raise his voice to be heard. Let the mind reader strain to hear.

“Yes,” Elias agrees. “Oh, yes.”

But even now, looking at the world being decimated in real time before him, he can scarcely imagine what it would be like to hold a knife and feel the pressure release stab knowing he killed someone. And Jon wouldn’t be impressed, not really, which is good, very good actually because Martin’s not sure he’s up for creating an atmosphere of casual, _acceptable_ murder.

“Do you want to see, Martin? To bare witness to Jon achieving what no one else in all of mankind’s history has ever come close to realizing?”

He doesn’t need to. 

He can remember handing over a box piled high with Beholding rations. Statements and tapes.

“Yes,” Elias purrs in agreement. “I can always count on you, Martin, when I need something accomplished.”

Martin looks away from Elias and the twisted pseudo truth of his words. He doesn’t need the reminder of his role in all this when it hasn’t quite stuck in his head yet that Elias’ manipulations aren’t his fault. 

The storm clouds twist like cyclones in the sky, losing shape and caving in on themselves like an avalanche. Lightning cuts through and spins cartoonishly into a dancing spiral.

He doesn’t get a chance to react before a vision of Jon overtakes his sight:

Jon’s fingers clenched around a statement. A statement Martin recognizes. That Martin gave him. Straining, struggling. Hair damp with sweat and lips trembling over words rising in a crescendo. 

Martin falls and the world goes dark. He thinks he’s passed out, except he can feel a body against his back, holding him up. Hands grab his chin and force his head up, neck craning into the depthless black.

The sky blinks open and a brightly shining iris is hung where the sun should be, its light illuminating the world.

Martin finds himself staring up at it, a dozen times larger than a harvest moon hanging radiant on dark nights.

Impossible and familiar.

It feels like the institute.

Like Elias.

Like Jon.

Being watched over by a malevolent force that has somehow, absurdly, taken him under its wing all those many years ago.

It’s instinct that shifts Martin into the Lonely. Billowing isolation keeping him safe from the horrors _watching_ him.

Elias pulls him out, or maybe joins him. From the muted sounds of panic that seem suddenly far away Martin doesn’t think he’s gone far.

Then again, that could just be dissociated anxiety, making the world feel fake. Like a movie or, well, getting lost in a statement.

Elias’ voice is breathless, relishing his victory. “You came to me once, looking for guidance, and here it is: it will be easier for you to live in my world than to hide from it. Choose the Lonely if you must, but know that you’re usefulness has run its course. Keep that in mind when you decide which master to feed,” Elias says, resting his chin on Martin’s shoulder. “Because you don’t want to meet me as an adversary, do you, Martin?”

Martin can feel it now, the compulsion in Elias’ voice. The subtle coercion that’s been inside him for a decade. It stopped him turning in his resignation, kept him sleeping in the institute basement. It tinkered with his mind, had him researching statements that no one planned to revisit. Picked at the small pieces of him that always want to tell Elias off, right to his face. 

That kept him at a bus stop, ranting at a sociopath who can’t hear anything over his own self-importance.

Martin fights against the hands holding him up. His nails dig into Elias’ wrist, scratching wounds into his skin until Elias hisses in pain and lets go.

Martin swings around to shove him further back. He wants to throw a punch and make Elias hurt as much as he’s hurting, but when he looks at him…

Elias has too many eyes.

Far too many eyes.

They aren’t really there, or at least not physically, but Martin can feel hundreds of them pinning him down with heady scrutiny.

“Well,” Elias says, laughing. “Something to think about. But you’ve other places to be, don’t you? Someone needs to wake up Sleeping Beauty, it might as well be you.”

Elias punctuates his words with a second vision: Jon, fallen off his chair and laying in a awkward heap on the floor. His nose is bleeding and his eyes are open. Blank, unconscious, and staring out at a world collapsing around him.

“Jon…” Martin says quietly, drowned out by the screams and hysterics of the townspeople’s confused terror.

“Do give him my regards, won’t you? Tell him… ‘you’re welcome.’”

Martin glances at Elias, but there’s no point in spitting out a comeback. Elias plummets instantaneously in the ranks of enemies Martin has to contend with.

Fifteenth place, specifically. 

He turns, swallowing his fear the best he can, focusing only on the crumbling, infested path back home.

“Good luck, Martin.” Elias calls out, his laughter echoing into a fade as Martin runs.


End file.
